Christians need to choose better heroes.

Selecting the right heroes entails more than just recognizing them; it also requires understanding some of why we choose the people we do.

We need to improve our ability to choose wisely:

Have you ever scrolled through your social media feed and noticed that many widely shared posts tend to elicit strong emotional responses, prompting you to either feel, “Yeah, that’s right!” or “No, that’s completely wrong!” Did you know social media platforms are intentionally crafted to evoke emotions rather than stimulate thoughtful contemplation? (If you want to go down the rabbit hole look up neuromarketing.) This begs a great question… Why would companies invest billions of dollars into marketing that evokes strong emotional responses and promotes impulsive behavior? Because money follows strong emotional impulsive responses. The intricate web of enterprise, entertainment, and politics needs to keep you ensnared in envy, FOMO (fear of missing out), echo chambers, and the fear of loss.

Joseph LeDoux in his book “The Emotional Brain” clearly lays out two tracks of thinking. The heightened emotional fight or flight response is fast and responds in strong ways. Slow critical thinking often produces much more reasonable, calculated and balanced engagement. Comapnies know you won’t spend money quickly or support a politician blindly if you are thinking critically, so your social media, news outlets and tv commercials are filled with things that are built to fire the fast acting less critical emotional brain.

Christianity is not immune to this. Too many of us have lost our ability to critically assess and are swept up in the blind emotion of this age. It’s time to add a little critical reflection about what we give to, who we support and the heroes we lift up as exemplars.

We need to identify better heroes:

The ever present, culturally fed dissonance in our hearts seems to produce three types of Christian (anti)heroes.

The Macabre:

These leaders excel at pointing out what’s wrong in our culture. They are often intelligent and good observers. They are often seen as cultural gurus. These podcasters, authors, comedians and even professors are awesome at wrapping words around what’s broken and telling heart touching stories of how awful everything is and how stupid “other” people are. The Macabre leader inadvertently glorifies dissonance in the name of an eventual good, but that good rarely materializes. They don’t lead people into true peace, they lead them into feeling confirmed in their bias. There is a huge difference here. Feeling justified is not the same as finding peace. These “heroes” are most dangerous because they are so close to true heroes. It’s true that you have to see what’s wrong before you can fix it. However, seeing what’s wrong without knowing how to participate in fixing the world merely makes you a vigilante, an antihero.  Macabre Christian leaders are trumpeters of brokenness, not evangelists of The Good news. Macabre leaders don’t actually know the way to peace, they know how to help people feel justified in their anger. This solace isn’t real wholeness.

The Conquistador:

Quick history – Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers and explorers that made people “Christian” at the point of the sword. The Conquistador Christian hero thrives on deconstruction and brute force. They’re skilled at ripping  things apart, from culture to entertainment to political parties they don’t like. Like the Macabre, they (often correctly) identify what’s wrong. However, they are obsessed with the fight. What they love is war. They are always raising armies to take someone out. There are the “Christian” people you talk to and you aren’t sure if they actually want to save or slaughter lost people. There are two problems. First, we must differentiate between a heart that is merely driven by it’s hatred of what is evil and a heart that is actually driven to love. They both want change, but we forget that our fellow humans are captives in need of rescue, not enemies to be destroyed.

The Conciliatory:

This leader believes what is most loving is also the most permissive. The Conciliatory’s prime objective is for people to feel good about themselves. They harbor a dislike for anyone who upholds a divine law that might cause discomfort. They are particularly contentious with those who uphold traditional values and principles. They have a deep appreciation for parables, such as the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8). However, they tend to overlook the command to ‘go and sin no more’ when teaching stories like this.

Like other antiheroes, the Conciliatory leader displays glimpses of Christ’s true work but miss the whole picture. They are passionate about promoting reconciliation but often forget the most crucial place of reconciliation. Our ultimate goal, and the greatest good, is assisting people in reconciling with God, not just with themselves, their preferred cultures, political parties, or the entertainment industry. Only reconciliation with God can guide individuals toward heaven. Unfortunately, the Conciliatory leader overlooks Jesus’ assertion that He is the only way to be part of the eternal heavenly family (John 14:6). In an attempt to be “inclusive” they may be excluding people from the actual way to heaven. You cannot share the love of Jesus without sharing what Jesus came to share with the people He loves.

Setting aside the Macabre, Conquistador and Conciliatory: A new hero. 

What makes a great hero is what they are obsessed with. Throughout history, religious people have shared a common heart problem: they hate evil and desire the demise of darkness, but they often forget that hate doesn’t heal and giving your life to deconstruction isn’t a pursuit wholeness. Others forget that without reconciliation with God all other peace making is short lived and will lead to suffering again. Reconciliation with God should be our ultimate goal and love isn’t merely a feeling, it is a personal sentient being. God is love (1John 4:8). Reconciliation with Love (God) is heaven, a realm of endless creative wonder. It’s time to elevate voices that can see and speak true beauty into existence. Where are the people obsessed with heaven, obsessed with God?!We must teach the difference between figures like Malcolm X, who rightly saw what was wrong, and MLK, who had… a dream. To truly fix what’s broken, we must embody the concept of “fix,” just as the Gospel does. It doesn’t just highlight our sins but also redeems, reconciles, saves, and resurrects us for heaven. We need heroes who radiate light rather than only condemning darkness. For those Christians who aspire to be beacons of hope rather than mere wrecking balls, know that you’re seen. Let us not only despise the dark but also embrace and emanate the light accurately. See a hurt and heal it. Talk about the love of Jesus and invite people into it. Participate in building beautiful things. Elevate, give to and participate in tangible Christian love. When the relentless emotionally evoking stream of advertisements, mass political text messages and phone tree calls come your way… stop. Slow down and think – do these merely see the dark or are they ACTUALLY bringing light? Do you only obsess over what’s dark or do you participate in bringing light? Do you do these things in public enough that you literally have a reputation of being filled with the love of Jesus?

Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV): “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”